


Honest Laughter

by which_chartreuse



Series: The Colors of Laughter [2]
Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complex Emotions, Eventual Sex, Eventually Resolved Sexual Tension, F/M, Gen, I have no idea, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced former Midge/Benjamin relationship, Oops, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Someday I might rewrite this whole disaster, Tags May Change, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vague Historical References, Why Did I Write This?, but first sleep, canon adjacent, continues from Broken Colour, corresponds to Broken Colour, did I inadvertently deus ex machina this disaster?, does this count as Slow Burn?, former relationships referenced, how do you balance sex and humor?, lots of canon references, lots of characters referenced, mostly happy ending, references Broken Colour, references to a few Benjamin episodes, references to pretty much every Lenny episode, references to the Declan Howell episode, why are you even reading this if you haven't seen through s3e8?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23302882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/which_chartreuse/pseuds/which_chartreuse
Summary: “The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it." - Lenny Bruce---“Two failed marriages. I really am the Mad Divorcee of the Upper West Side.” She laughs once, unconvincingly.“I could propose and make it a round three,” Lenny offers, playing into her joke with – he hopes – enough humor in his tone.---A sort-of sequel to Broken Colour.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel, Miriam "Midge" Maisel and Lenny Bruce
Series: The Colors of Laughter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734211
Comments: 113
Kudos: 134





	1. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so. Starting out with a longer opening note than I would usually, but there are some things to explain for those who may not have read/have chosen not to read Broken Colour. There will be some early illusions to that piece at the beginning of this one, but overall this story focuses on Midge and Lenny's evolving dynamic and relationship. The essential background is that Miriam and Benjamin got back together and married after Midge was cut from Shy Baldwin's tour. The marriage doesn't hold up well, and they are separated by the beginning of Broken Colour.
> 
> This first chapter corresponds to a briefly mentioned interaction between Midge and Lenny in Chapter 7: Craving. The second chapter of this work falls between Chapters 10 and 11 of Broken Colour, after a sexual encounter between Midge and Howell and before Midge's final fight with Benjamin. From the third chapter of this work on we will be post-Broken Colour. You don't have to read that piece if you don't want to, but I would of course appreciate your feedback - or just kudos - if you do choose to read it.
> 
> Thank you for reading

“What, no olive?” Lenny asks, sauntering over with an eyebrow cocked.  
  
“Bartender messed up my drink. A twist doesn’t have quite the same oomph,” Midge replies with a shrug of a shoulder and a smile.  
  
Lenny acknowledges the quip with a tip of his glass in her direction and slides onto the stool next to hers. She had had the drink delivered to his table so she could get his attention, but now she has it she isn’t quite sure what she wants to do with it.  
  
“I hope you aren’t expecting me to put out,” he says, drinks deep and takes her in. She's practically glowing in the dim light of the club. “A boy expects dinner, too, you know.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Midge feigns surprise without enough enthusiasm. “Well, I’ve already eaten, so I suppose...”  
  
“Your loss,” he teases, but he notices the unfocused agitation she's putting off, too.  
  
“So, you caught the show,” he says, changing course, keeping the conversation moving.  
  
“Absolutely delightful,” Midge enthuses, and Lenny's face contorts in pretend disgust.  
  
“Shhh! Keep that shit down. I’ve got a reputation to maintain!”  
  
“Oh, well in that case, I was deeply offended and you’ll be hearing from my lawyer... Actually,” - her brow knits a moment - “I think we might have the same lawyer.”  
  
“Do we? Good, then be a pal and pay him for me?”  
  
“Hmm, that bad again?” Midge tries to temper the note of concern in her voice, but it seems alright because Lenny’s next words are  
  
“'Again'? You mean ' _still_ ', don’t you?” There's a certain levity in his voice, but Midge still feels a stab of sympathy.  
  
“In all seriousness, Lenny, I can get you some money. My father would probably loan you some after that stint as jailbirds; he still talks about that. Although, he owes me money at this point... But I could ask Benjamin...”  
  
Lenny’s expression had already pinched in preparation to protest her offer, but with the mention of the doctor, something of the lightness in his composure goes out, too.  
  
“Ah, so it’s back on with tall, Doc and handsome?” he asks, too casual for casual.  
  
Midge crinkles her nose at the play on words, but when she shakes her head it's not in distaste.

There had been a long gap in her friendship with Lenny Bruce after Midge's run with Shy Baldwin was cut short and she got back together with Benjamin. On the few occasions they'd bumped into each other after the wedding their banter had been muted, almost civil. Things have warmed considerably since her separation, and she wants to keep it that way. As long as possible.  
  
“No, it’s off. And it’s going to stay that way,” she states, emphatic. “Although, my parents now know about the separation, so my mother probably has some scheme brewing.”  
  
Lenny’s eyebrows bounce once as if to say ‘of course, Jewish mothers,’ but his eyes are still cautious and curious while he waits for Midge to elaborate. But she doesn’t exactly.  
  
“But if it’s bad, Lenny, let me help.” Her hand pats his, almost absently, and comes to rest over it. “I can ask-”  
  
“No, no. Thank you. But no,” he makes earnest eye-contact for a moment before slipping from her grasp and turning to light a new cigarette. “I’m fine, really. I have some things lined up...”  
  
“Oh yeah?” She asks, genuinely interested, and lets her hand resettle in her lap without a comment or a look. But there's a flash of something, just for an instant, when he nods, drawing deep on his smoke.

“Turns out, playing Carnegie is still carrying some weight for me. And I haven't been arrested yet this week, either, so hopefully I'll have earned an entire paycheck by Friday.”

“Anything in town?” Midge asks, trying for conversational again.

“Not for a while after this. But I’ll let you know. Watch for my smoke signals.” They're resettling into their usual banter, and that will have to do for now.

“I'll do that. Maybe I'll have Ethan learn semaphore...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am hoping to maintain my previous schedule of posting twice-weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't have as much of this work pre-written as the last one, though, so I might have to fall back to once a week. I am not generally a humorous or comedic writer, so working on the wittiness and banter of these two takes me longer than when I get straight up moody [see Stormy Haze (Calm Sea) and Sing One We Know for the tearjerker-side of my Midge/Lenny feelings]. I am currently in isolation in temp housing with no work, so hopefully that will mean more time for this. Of course, receiving feedback, comments, and kudos is always inspiring and also helps keep the creativity flowing (wink, wink)...
> 
> Also, for those interested in such things, I have a Pinterest account under this same username with a board dedicated to inspirations and visual references for this piece (but I also don't know what I'm doing, so you may not want to follow me there).
> 
> Alright, that's enough for now, methinks... Thank you for reading!


	2. Early

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was edited slightly on 27 March 2020.

“So, I hear there was some kind of dust-up at the old Guggenheim gallery. Something about a _Mrs. X_ and a hulk of an art collector decking the artist...” Lenny sidles up beside Midge at the Gaslight's bar, glancing furtively around as if to avoid being seen before turning a look of suspicion her way. “That wouldn't happen to be _you_ , Mrs. X? Would it?”

The grin that appeared on Midge's face with the arrival of Lenny Bruce in her orbit falls. “Oh no,” she says, looking away, and feels heat begin to creep up her neck. When she glances back at Lenny his eyes are wide with something like surprise.

“Wo-ow.” He almost whistles. “So it's true...”

“No,” Midge replies, tamping down on her embarrassment that the story of her estranged husband picking a fight at the Declan Howell opening has apparently gotten around in the comedy world, too. “No,” she insists. “It wasn't _like that_.”

“Like what?” Lenny asks, all false innocence, and watches warm color continue to advance across Midge's complexion. Watches her with humor in his smirk and affection dancing in his half-lidded eyes.

Midge takes a deep breath, then a gulp from her coffee cup of gin. She tries to sort out her story, but finds her mouth managing to get ahead of her already.

“It wasn't the old Guggenheim gallery. You probably just heard the Peggy Guggenheim story. About pissing on a burning painting? – Anyway, it wasn't the old Guggenheim gallery, it was just _a_ gallery. And Benjamin didn't 'deck' Howell, he just hit him – but I guess it was in the face. And it did knock him down....”

Midge rattles on, barely pausing for breath, and Lenny observes, his smile growing wider until his hand comes up in that way he has of hiding his own amusement. He watches the flush in her cheeks rise and then dissipate as her pace evens. He lets her talk herself in circles until he's certain she's talking around something that excites her but that she also doesn't necessarily want him to know.

“I'm beginning to see the resemblance,” he finally says, drawing her up short. Her brow furrows a moment before she grasps his meaning, understands that he's talking about the painting.

 _So he's_ seen _it, too_.

“Hey!” Midge smacks at his shoulder with a playful scowl.

“That was supposed to be a compliment. You blush beautifully,” he says, looking away as soon as the words escape. He pulls a cigarette from his packet and then offers it to her, catching the new flush of color in her cheeks. “I couldn't put my finger on it 'til just now... That Declan Howell's a helluva artist.” He pauses, considering; then adds, softly, “And a lucky guy.”

Midge meets his look – inscrutable, yet heavy with significance – and holds it.

A moment lingers between them, eyes fixed, drawing out. Midge feels as though they have both suddenly stepped straight up to the line they've drawn between them, and are now staring meaningfully across at one another. It's startling to realize how well Lenny can read her, how intuitive he can be. Or maybe she's spent so much time broadcasting unspoken things lately that she's inadvertently told Lenny everything...

She can feel sparks jump between them.

But the look only lasts a moment more before they both turn to light their respective cigarettes.

“So, are you coming or going,” Lenny asks on a sigh. “Am I early or late?”

“Early. I go on after...” Midge scans the stage, where a duo with a mandolin and a ukulele – _too many tiny instruments_ – have just begun to warble into a shared microphone. “That.”

They both make faces. “Can you stay?” She hates the note of hope she hears in her voice when she looks back to him.

“Unfortunately, no. I'm introducing Lindsey and the boys at the Vanguard and then catching a red-eye.” Midge stares at Lenny's mouth as he over-pronounces 'red-eye' and pulls on his cigarette, but she catches herself before he notices.

“Tell 'em 'Hi' from me. And ask about the new baby! How many is that, now?”

“The man is _potent_ _._ ” Lenny smirks with one peaked eyebrow, and he watches her stifle a giggle with her cigarette.

Their eyes meet again, but the tension has dropped. The sparks have died down. He isn't staying. He's on his way back out of town. There is a nice warmth between them, though, and right now that's enough for Midge.

It isn't enough for Lenny...

But Susie appears, looking ready to hype Midge up, and the spell breaks again.

“Susie.” He nods her way in acknowledgment.

“Lenny.” The diminutive manager nods back. Lenny crosses from his spot to stand between the two women, drawing Midge's attention away from her manager, and shrugs into his jacket at the same time.

“Listen, I'll be back at the end of the month. Maybe I'll catch you then?” It isn't like them to make plans, really, but there's something insistent in the way he holds Midge's eye.

“I have a few more city gigs before the summer schedule picks up,” Midge offers, feeling more hesitant than usual. Susie mercifully chimes in.

“Cafe Wha? on the twenty-eighth and The Bitter End the thirtieth. Then it's the Catskills,” the manager says.

“Thanks,” Lenny shoots over his shoulder. “I can remember that.”

He gives Midge a hard, squinting look as he drags down the rest of his cigarette in a sickeningly long pull, then blows it away into the sparse crowd.

“Don't go starting any more fights without me,” he finally says with a jab of a finger and a wink, and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As previously mentioned, this chapter falls between chapters 10 and 11 of Broken Colour, but I also realized there are a lot of allusions to chapter 8: Revenge(?). If you find yourself confused by any of the "subtext" here, those are the places to look. ;) 
> 
> I am not sure if the back and forth/simultaneous perspectives thing is working. I am confronting a lot of my own limitations as a writer in the process of setting this all out in text. I so, so wish I could somehow plug in my brain and share what's in there with you, so you could hear it and see it the way I do. I guess that is what drives us to write and share in the first place, though... Please feel free to let me know if it's working for you or not. 
> 
> Thank you for reading (:


	3. Haunted

He can't seem to get her out of his head. He downed two drinks at the Vanguard, and took a few hits with the boys at the back door before hailing a cab to the airport. He nursed several more watered down cocktails on the airplane before something like sleep came over him. But it's no use, because she's there, too. Inside his head, flickering at the edge of his consciousness...

Lenny had never considered himself the type of man to find a woman more desirable because she was with someone else. In fact, Midge's marriage to Benjamin had settled her squarely in the “platonic” column, where she had stayed nearly a year; before news of their separation had turned Lenny's head again. But even then, any memory of a long night in Miami – that may or may not have haunted him in the past – remained carefully locked away.

Somehow, though, the thought of her with that artist while her sham of a marriage finally collapsed gave him a bit of a thrill. It seemed to say something about the evolving liberation of an undeniably talented and unfairly attractive woman.

The fact of the matter is, though, Lenny has no idea if Midge has really been having an affair with an abstract expressionist. There's just something about the way she seemed almost to glow the last time he saw her, warm with new infatuation. And then there was the story about the doctor at the art gallery, and the name of the painting. There had to be something there. He'd had to see it for himself.

It had been a bit like jazz, looking at that expanse of color. Raucous and unruly but somehow resolving into something beautiful. Entrancing. And then he'd watched that color creep across her face, listened to her talk around the man who had painted it. Met those blue eyes. Maybe he was wrong, but he didn't think so.

Not when she gave off sparks like that...

The idea of Midge with someone so contrary to the drab men she had married stirred something resembling possibility in Lenny's chest. And it would be revolting to hope if it weren't simultaneously so appealing...

Lenny landed in Los Angeles in a haze of liquor and sexual frustration, determined to put all thoughts of Miriam Maisel from his mind, at least until they were occupying the same coast again. He performed his sets and made it to his meetings, remaining just sober enough to get through without too much trouble. Then got loaded enough to get some sleep. It took a week of constant distraction and continuous self-medication, but his mind finally stopped turning over the possibilities.

By the time Lenny arrived in New York again, the memory of Midge's flushed skin and penetrating eyes – the thought of her Upper West Side class mingling with the uncertain chaos of an artist's life – had been pushed from his brain. Mrs. Maisel is a shiny, pretty thing with a mouth to rival anyone else in the business, and a very good friend. Nothing more.

That doesn't mean he doesn't want to see her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lenny Bruce is in denial... Is Lenny Bruce in denial? Either way, he's making some pretty big assumptions...  
> This isn't the original third chapter that was going to go here, but it decided it needed to be here, so here it is. 
> 
> I may be giving up on any semblance of "control" I have over this piece already. I will do my best to keep a regular posting schedule, but what even are days at this time in the world? The pace and tone and organization of this exercise are not cooperating, so I'm just going with it. I hope that doesn't put too many of you off. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll stick this out with me. :)


	4. Two Out of Three

Lenny settles in a dark spot along the side wall of the new venue, simultaneously glad and nervous for the size of the crowd, and wonders why Midge is still playing these basket houses. He knows why, of course, it's just unfortunate. He laughs along with the crowd, and a little harder than the rest when he catches the nuances of a reworked joke. _Shit, she's good..._

Before long she's shouting her gleeful thanks and bounding from the tiny stage.

“So. How was I?” Midge asks as she flounces down next to Lenny in a rustling of black taffeta.

“Huh-uh. That's not how this works,” he scolds, but he's already fighting a smile. “You know the drill.”

“I know you prefer the sneak-attack, but I was hoping we could skip the prolonged begging on my part...”

Lenny smiles from behind his hand and lets Midge simmer a moment. She sighs with mock exasperation.

“So what's it going to be this time? Surprise television appearance? Human sacrifice? Maybe just some pretzels and a joint?” Lenny's eyebrows bounce and he nods automatically at that last suggestion, but quickly switches to shaking 'no'.

“I was thinking drinks... Maybe dancing. There's a place I think you'll enjoy seeing,” he says, pulling the hand away from his mouth and letting it hang between them in offering.

“Dancing,” Midge repeats, and her smile softens at the corners. It's still a happy look, though, and she nods.

“Yeah?” Lenny asks, making certain.

“Yeah. Let's have drinks. Let's go dancing.”

“Do you need a costume change, or...” Lenny gestures to the black dress of her stage uniform.

“Will it be too much?” she asks, smoothing the fabric with her opera-gloved hands.

“For me, never.” His look is full of real interest, though Midge can tell he's trying to play it cool. “But we aren't going to the Palladium.”

Midge deliberates a moment. Lenny can see her gears turning and laughs to himself at the importance of appearance to a woman who probably looks good in anything. But then she says,

“So I'll lose the gloves. I'm already overdressed. And it'll take too long to run home and back, and my wardrobe is already packed for the borscht belt, anyway...” She meets his eye with a funny little sigh.

“Alright then,” Lenny says, rising and extending his hand to her.

~//~

It's not as deliciously atmospheric as the Latin club where they'd danced in Miami, but Midge doesn't think it's possible there's a place as wonderfully curious and perfect as that in New York. Not in a city as fast and dirty as this, and definitely not in the Village. But there's still something so moody and just foreign enough about the dark club where Lenny has brought her to make Midge revel in the dim smokiness and colored lights.

There are drinks first, as promised, and as Midge pulls off her satin gloves before sipping her martini Lenny's eyes stray to her bare ring finger. She didn't always wear a ring off-stage, he knows, but he hasn't seen her without the doctor's sparkling stunner since her marriage, even with the separation. Midge catches him looking and meets his surprised and confused expression with a cold little smile.

“It's done,” she says in response to the question he hasn't asked, repeating the simple refrain of her conversations of late. Susie knows. Her parents know... Now Lenny knows.

His expression rapidly shifts as his mind races at the implications. “I always catch you at the end of things, don't I?” he asks, brow knit, and frowns a little as he looks to her for the next cue. Because suddenly there's a crack in his careful resolve.

She pauses, then nods because it's true. She met Lenny right after her first marriage imploded – literally _right after._ And here he is again. Her cold smile shifts into something a little warmer but also a little sadder.

“I suppose so,” she says, agreeing with Lenny's observation. There's a certain symmetry. She tries to school her expression as she glances out at the figures huddled in dark booths, leaning into each other on the dance floor, but her eyes don't match the reapplied smile. “Two failed marriages. I really am the Mad Divorcee of the Upper West Side.” She laughs once, unconvincingly.

“I could propose and make it a round three,” Lenny offers, playing into her joke with – he hopes – enough humor in his tone, and Midge laughs with a bit more honesty in the sound.

“When I talked about 'three before thirty,' that was _not_ what I had in mind.” She smiles pointedly at him and watches him fight his own surprised grin.

It's not as charged as Miami, not as charged as she knows it could be, but she feels a warmth ignite in her center when she meets his eyes, and she shakes her head at the absurdity of her life.

On the verge of thirty, with two kids and, soon, two ex-husbands. Sitting in a dim little speakeasy with Lenny Bruce, profane king of comedy, trying to ignore the dark allure of his sleepy eyes...

Midge throws back her martini in quick gulps. “Two is enough.” She says it like she's announcing something, and turns to Lenny with a new look. Something determined. “Show me a good time?”

He follows her lead, downing his drink all at once before taking her hand and pulling her from her perch.

“Yes ma'am.” He grins and leads her into the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What even is time? I promise to hit the Tuesday and Thursday schedule, but I think there are going to be a lot of little unscheduled surprises in this story. Pacing? Who's even heard of that?
> 
> Thank you for reading (:


	5. Uncertainty

There's a nice little four-piece on the speakeasy's stage, and a jukebox with a thin man to feed it coins when the band isn't playing. It's clearly a place people come to dance or to drink, not to be seen. So the music is loud enough that conversations aren't overheard, and the lights low enough not to be too closely observed.

Occasionally, though, someone ventures near and leans in close to say something in Lenny's ear, then smiles at Midge when Lenny shakes his head, and disappears back into the haze. It happens three times before Midge finally raises her brows and asks,

“Do you know everyone?”

Lenny just shrugs, a carefully applied smirk on his face.

“What can I say? I am very famous and important.”

Midge stills under Lenny's hands, halting their dance, and fixes him with an unimpressed gaze until he leans in to say,

“If I tell you, it'll make you an accomplice...”

She rolls her eyes, but his light tone doesn't sit well and she remains unmoving. “Are you robbing the place?”

Lenny shakes his head, leaning closer yet and jokes, “I'll explain it when you're older.” When she still doesn't relent he throws up his hands and makes his way back to the bar.

Midge hesitates, stunned and a little nettled at being left alone on the dance floor, then follows. There's a martini already waiting for her when she comes up beside him. Before she can say anything, though, Lenny pins her with one of those squinting looks.

“Listen,” he says, then takes a gulp of his own drink before continuing. “I think I'm doing a pretty good job of not asking about your marriage, and pretending like I'm just cool with how this evening is going. So, could we maybe just drink our drinks, and maybe dance a little, and ignore the fact that I know drug dealers all over town?”

Midge nearly chokes on her olive. “Wow,” she says, for lack of anything better.

“Yeah, 'wow,'” Lenny repeats, dejected and a little angry. But then he glances back at Midge and sees the hurt mingling with the surprise on her face.

“Shit, Midge -”

“No, it's okay. You're right. I should have let it go.” Her attention returns to her martini and she picks at the second olive, all the warmth gone from her face.

“No, I shouldn't have said that.” He waits for her to look back at him before saying, “I'm sorry. That was stupid.”

“I still forget that you don't just _exist_ sometimes.” She recalls the conversations they once had about him living places and smiles a little half-smile. He tries to match it. “Thank you for not asking about Benjamin,” she adds, then sips the martini. There's a beat that's just a hair too long.

“Who?” Lenny feigns confusion with a frown, and she gives him a conciliatory snort.

They sip their drinks in the silence between the end of a song and the jukebox changing over, each simmering in uncertainty, glances shifting back and forth, just missing each other. When their eyes finally rise at the same time the tension breaks with embarrassed laughter.

“You still wanna dance with me?” Midge asks, setting her empty glass aside. “You can say 'no' if you want to.” Although her eyebrows and her smirk say otherwise.

...As does the pounding in Lenny's chest...

Her smile broadens when he nods his head, and he can't stop the one that grows on his own face in response, either. He's already reaching for her hands again.

He pulls her out into the semidarkness, and when his right hand settles against the warm silk at her back he holds her a little closer than before. “Of course I'll dance with you. Any time you like.”

The words tickle Midge's ear, and an involuntary shiver runs down her spine. She knows Lenny feels it, but he makes no comment in words or expression. She isn't sure if his offer is that of a friend or implying something more. She isn't sure if the weight of his hand against her back is meant to comfort or trying to say something else about 'how this evening is going.' She isn't sure which she would prefer...

While he isn't the most skilled dancer, Lenny is still a good dance partner, and he presses and leads, spinning her out and away. And when he reels her back in, Midge settles a little closer still.

Lenny gazes down at Midge, and Midge looks back, but she can't read the expression on his face. It's full of affection, but shot through with something else, too. He looks sad, or afraid, though his lips curve in a gentle smile. There's a nervous energy about him, though his hands are steady against her.

And Lenny _is_ afraid, nervous. Because the excuses he's been feeding himself, the slap-dash barriers he's erected to keep his mind from running away with him are falling away with each passing moment in her company. And it's only his darkest aspects, and the enduring need to protect her from his demons, that are keeping him from doing something unbelievably stupid.

And Midge isn't feeling all that confident in her self-control. She knows that Lenny is just another man; but he also remains something of an unattainable totem, even as she keeps bumping up against his humanity. He's her friend, but the comfortable tension has been evolving. It's growing difficult to rationalize the careful distance she's been maintaining.

They're toe to toe across that line again, each watching the other.

They watch each other until the music stops. They watch each other in the rustling darkness between songs. They watch each other until the band picks up again with a slow song. They watch each other until Lenny lifts Midge's arm up over his shoulder and his left hand settles above his right at the center of her back.

She can feel the thudding in his chest, then, and she turns to lean her ear against it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something weird is going on here, and it's going to get weirder. But please bear with me. ;)
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


	6. Confusing Everything

They are a dark spot in an already darkened room. Her black dress disappears against his suit. They are just another couple seeking anonymity.

But where other pairs come together and drift apart with each song, seeking out new partners – or maybe transactions? – they stay together, swaying to the music even when it isn't playing. Where the people around them slip into the shadowed booths or shift down the pitch black corridor to the street, neither Lenny nor Midge make any move away from the dance floor or out of the other's space.

His hands grow hot against her back, and her fingers stroke at the nape of his neck with careful nonchalance. There's a pounding in both chests, reverberating back and forth, betraying a host of things going unsaid. Confusing everything. But it isn't uncomfortable in their silence.

Even if they are holding their breath.

Overhead lights flash on and off over the dance floor, and suddenly the room comes alive with agitated voices and shifting bodies. Midge hears a groan rise out of Lenny's chest, feels him tense under her arms. His hands slip from her back and pull hers from his shoulders, and she feels his mouth against her hair where he speaks next to her ear. “This's why I didn't wanna explain. Plausible deniability.” She meets his eyes, confused, before he says “C'mon,” and actually presses his lips to the side of her face – it seems a gesture of reassurance, but is it for her, or is he reassuring himself? – and pulls her along with the crush of obscured figures rushing for a back door.

Lenny hurries them to the street corner, then halfway down the next block before he stops, flashing lights bouncing off darkened windows behind them. He's laughing too hard and struggling for air where he leans in the narrow gap between two buildings. Midge has no idea what's going on, but the adrenaline and the laughter are contagious so she's giggling along with him when she gasps “What was that?”

He's still holding her hand, and his eyes fall to the place where his thumb brushes back and forth against her soft skin. Midge watches his expression falter, his lips twitching between a smile and a frown as his laughter dies down. She squeezes her fingers around his and tugs a little, but he doesn't give. Instead, she tumbles toward him. When he catches her his eyes are unbelievably sad.

“That,” he inhales sharply, “was something you should probably forget about.” He sighs, pushes off the wall, gently pressing her back until she's on her own two feet. He lets go of her hand.

“Well, it was exciting, whatever it was,” Midge says, feeling suddenly very cold and alone, her smile slipping. She rubs her hands over her bare arms as if that will warm her enough to forget the feel of his arms around her just now, and on the dance floor before that.

Lenny scans the cautious look Midge now wears, avoiding his eyes, covering the tense uncertainty that has sprung up between them. “I'll go back and find your gloves tomorrow. Your coat,” he says, and his fingers twitch for want of something to occupy them. Like he'll reach out and touch her again.

“I'll be gone in the morning,” she replies. “Catskills.” She meets his dark eyes and her mask slips. His look is suddenly pleading, and in that moment she's tempted to take the half-step forward she would need to cross over to his side of the line. Tempted to rise up onto her toes and...-

“Right,” he says on a sigh, turning away. “I'll get 'em to Susie, then.” He's stepping out of the closeness of the passageway and making for the curb. He hails a cab as Midge gapes at his back, struggling against the emotional whiplash of the last few minutes.

She thinks he'll slide in beside her when he holds the taxi's door open, but he shuts it firmly behind her. He leans through the open window to hand the driver a folded bill.

“Lenny!” Midge's voice breaks on the exclamation of his name.

“Have a good summer, Midge,” he responds as his hand thumps the window frame, but he isn't really looking at her. He's looking through her when the cab pulls away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...  
> (I feel like I should be apologizing, but I am also kind of savoring the possibility that some of you will be feeling the same frustration I have been feeling as I attempt to translate these loons out of my head.)
> 
> A little "housekeeping" update: The final business of getting to move into a permanent place will be finished up on Friday and I won't be homeless anymore! I'll be moving over the weekend, and getting to isolate in more than two rooms! And use an oven! Hooray! That also means I might not have regular access to internet for a while, though, so next week might not see any updates. I am hoping this will be an "under-promise and over-deliver" situation, but I just don't know yet. Plus side (sorta), I am still essentially unemployed, so I will still be spending most of my time writing... 
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read :)


	7. Delusions

She rode back to her apartment – _her_ apartment, though her parents had been occupying it for the better part of a year, believing Midge and the children to have been living in the townhouse with Benjamin most of that time – in stunned silence. She was grateful the cabbie wasn't the chatty sort, because she wasn't sure she would have been able to get anything more than the address out of her mouth. And when she got up to her floor of the building, she was grateful that her parents and the children had already departed for Steiner because she couldn’t have faced Rose or Abe’s disapproving looks.

She'd turned over the memories, the feelings, the details in her head as she was driven away from him. It wasn't difficult to piece together what had happened there at the end. She knew about police raids on unlicensed bars, and had been present for one at the Gaslight before. She understood why he had hurried her out the door, even if it had taken the long quiet minutes of silence in the back of the cab to make the realization. She did not understand, though, why Lenny would take her there if it was somewhere he went to score. Even with the appeal of its dim multicolored lights and its stiff drinks.

She knew Lenny had problems. Hell, it was a prerequisite of being a comic to have some major issues or character flaws. She knew about the arrests and the lawyers and the money. She knew he smoked too much, and they both drank too much, and, technically, she even knew about the drugs. She'd smoked her first joint with him just a few days after they'd met. She had never expected to collide with the inner workings of that life, though. And based on his response, neither had he intended her to.

But that wasn't what really bothered her. What _really_ bothered her...

It was the lingering impression of his hands against her. The inability to look away from him and the matching inability to speak. The pleading sadness she'd seen in his hooded eyes. The sudden desire to press her lips to his and see if that took the sadness out of him. It was these memories that were twisting knots in Midge's stomach.

Why had he held her like that? Why had she leaned into his warmth? Why hadn't she just kissed him?

_Why hadn't he kissed her?_

It was eerily like high school, the tumult of emotions and desires and uncertainties. Only she wasn't lusting after Manniford McClaine, the captain of the football team, and this wasn't just losing a prom date to an ex-girlfriend. She was a mother and a working woman now, and there isn't time for such conflicting thoughts over sometimes-idols or sometimes-friends. There isn't time for entertaining delusions.

And she _must_ have been delusional to think that he was being anything but friendly, feeling anything more than concern for a friend coping with the final death rattles of her marriage. Showing her anything more than pity. She was just projecting meaning where there hadn't been any.

She could almost believe that. It was an unconvincing lie, but it was the easiest way she could make sense of how the evening had come to an abrupt halt. It was how she could keep herself from spiraling in the emptiness of the night. Maybe it would have been better to face her parents than to be alone with her thoughts.

She chided herself as she washed the day off of her. She shook her head over and over as she nibbled cold leftovers in her nightgown. She coached herself on getting 'your head on straight' as she wrapped her curls. She had been projecting what wasn’t there, what probably hadn’t been there since Florida, and it was silly but it was done now.

Lenny Bruce is a comedic god, and, somehow, a very good friend. That was all.

But Midge still dreams of dark eyes, an even darker suit, and the feel of hands along her spine...

~//~

Well, that's it.

Lenny fucked up.

He'd go back in the morning and find her gloves and her coat, assuming they hadn't wandered away with a police officer or someone else in the night. He'd leave them for Susie at the Gaslight, and he'd go back to drinking and worrying about keeping the lawyers paid and the judges happy. And he would _stop_ thinking about Midge.

Who was he kidding? He'd probably never see Midge again.

She may not have the doctor's ring on her finger anymore, but she was still so far out of his league they weren't even playing the same game. Tonight had solidified that. She might have leaned against his chest and stroked his neck, but it hadn't mattered because when it came down to it Lenny Bruce was a fucking coward.

He thought he'd had it once before. Thought he'd played his cards right, laid everything out just right, and he'd still watched Midge walk away in the predawn glow.

This was different, though. This time he'd been careful with his thoughts, kept a strangle-hold on his expectations. This time the night could hardly have gone any more wrong, and yet it hadn't. This time Midge had lingered against him and had matched him, look for look, and it had been Lenny who had turned away.

He could try to convince himself that he was protecting her from later regret, avoiding taking advantage of a complicated situation. He could pretend he had imagined the brush of her fingers, the weight of the thumb hooked inside his collar. He could waste all night and days after lying to himself, but what it really came down to was his own fear.

He had looked her in the eye and seen her open affection, a willingness to be there with him, and it turned out that terrified him.

_That's it, Bruce. You're done._

He'd sent her away in the cab, immediately lit a cigarette to occupy his twitching fingers, and let go of the hold he'd been keeping on the demons. He walked what felt like the whole length of Manhattan but was really only a few blocks, smoking and brooding, until he found one of those half-obscured faces that had floated toward him in the dark just an hour or so before. Then he obliterated any possibility of dwelling on Miriam Maisel for the next several hours.

 _Coward_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Midge is 100x better at compartmentalizing than Lenny, but Lenny is surprisingly self-aware. His coping mechanisms suck, though... Where will this lead us? 
> 
> As mentioned before, I'm not sure yet if I will be able to hit the Tuesday/Thursday schedule for next week. I am going to do my best, but consider yourselves forewarned. On that note, I saw a remark recently about artists creating and sharing work at a faster clip during isolation to keep us all encouraged and entertained, so I am wondering if y'all would prefer I post more rapidly but possibly more erratically, or if you prefer to know when to expect new chapters? I might not be able to respond to your comments through the weekend, etc, but I will get the email notifications, so please let me know if you have preferences by leaving a comment. Again, I don't want to promise anything, but I would love to know your thoughts.
> 
> Thank you for reading (:


	8. Summer

The summer is... chaos.

There's an unfortunate flop of a family-friendly set early on at Steiner, a hodgepodge of strange early dinner and great late evening fill-in sets at Kellerman's, and a run of absolutely fantastic midnight-blue sets at the Concord. It turns out that talking about her failed marriages for the entertainment of strangers is attractive to a lot of summering New York City men – the ones who hadn't watched her grow up at Steiner, anyway – and Midge accepts invitations to dinners and theme nights at neighboring resorts from a steady stream of unsuitable suitors. Partly to gently scandalize her mother, but also because it's fun. And Midge knows what they're expecting, and she happily and deftly subverts those expectations.

A scout also catches a particularly good set at the Concord, and bookers make inquiries. Susie secures another run in Chicago for early fall, a week-long residency in Las Vegas in late October, and a short tour of Southern California before New Year's.

Susie is offered and keeps a real job at Steiner – although it's not entirely clear to anyone what that job actually is beyond wearing a name-tag – drawing a steady paycheck as well as her ten percent. The kids on the staff learn to answer the payphone “Susie Myerson and Associates,” and they all get invested in Midge's career before long. Many hope to cameo in her act without actually considering that it's not often a good thing if you do. As hard as Susie commits to her tough-as-nails exterior, she settles deeper into the Steiner Resort Family with every passing day. She and Midge even teach Esther how to swim together.

Abe commutes back and forth between the resort and the city, writing reviews for the _Village Voice_ , and Miriam rides along with him a few times to get in experimental sets in the familiar atmosphere of the Gaslight before incorporating new material into her Catskills routine. Archie and Imogene get a babysitter and come down to meet her once, and it's comforting to watch them hold hands and boast over their, now, four children. It's reassuring to know that not all marriages collapse under the weight of expectation, miscommunication, and uncertainty, even if Midge also knows she'll never accept the role of housewife again.

Joel comes up to the resort when he manages to convince himself the Button Club will survive without him for a few days, and there's a nice family dinner that feels mostly non-confrontational, even if Rose looks ready to stab Shirley with a butter knife at any given moment. There's a comfortable love between Midge and Joel now, and any glimmer of 'let's try again' has long since gone out. Their system is working, so why mess with it?

The summer is chaos, but it's carefully-choreographed, elaborately-costumed, ideally-lit chaos. It's hectic and delightful and distracting and fun, and Midge stays busy and satisfied.

...

Then one morning Benjamin's mother corners her in the lodge, after Midge has dropped Ethan off for knot tying and boating activities and Esther for the toddlers' painting class.

With no children to buffer her, Mrs. Ettenberg – Midge had never come around to calling her Ida, and now she never will – smiles and embraces Midge as if she were her own daughter, and not divorcing her only son without first providing any biological grandchildren. The hand that continues to hold Midge's arm after the hug subsides indicates the underlying seriousness of whatever Mrs. Ettenberg is about to say.

“Benjamin wants to know which lawyer he should send the papers to.”

Midge does an impression of innocent surprise. “Oh, is he not coming up? That's too bad. He could have just called! I'm sure it's all fine. Just have him send whatever I need to sign and I'll send it right back.”

“He insists you have it looked over. Or really, his lawyers insists. You know how these things are.” The way she accentuates the 'you' and 'these things' is the closest Mrs. Ettenberg has come to actually saying how upset she is with the divorce since the separation became common knowledge.

“Well, I guess he can send them to Kessler if he really thinks it's necessary.”

Mrs. Ettenberg pats Midge where she's been holding her arm, confirms she'll pass on the information to the lawyers, then let's Midge escape after promising to invite Shirley Maisel to Mah-Jong on Thursday. Midge wonders if there's a secret Ex-Mothers-in-Law Society at Steiner...

Midge takes news of the divorce progressing in stride, but days later Susie tracks her down with a message from Kessler. The next time Midge rides into the city with her father she has him drop her at the lawyer's office, though it takes a good half-hour of insisting and reassuring she isn't in any trouble for Abe to let her out of the car.

“I don't handle divorce law, Midge!” Kessler shouts as soon as she's through the door, before he's hung up the phone, which he does with a crash. “But if I did... I'd tell you to take the money and run. This deal is too good. He's giving you way too much for a first offer. The man is either trying to make up for some major transgressions, or... he's still in love with you.”

“What do you mean?” Midge asks, lifting a stack of files from a chair and dropping down in front of the man's crowded desk.

“I mean, this is a lot.” He hands Miriam the paperwork, which she begins to read.

It is a lot. Benjamin is offering her enough to pay off the mortgage on her apartment and then-some, a monthly alimony, several pieces of art, and the townhouse. If she wasn't trying to think better of him, Midge might assume he was trying to buy her back. But as upset with him as she's been, she knows that they both know that's not possible and will never happen.

“You're right,” Midge says with a sigh. “I don't want all this. Can you take all this out?” She gestures in a circular motion around the things that constitute 'all this' before grabbing a pen from Kessler's clutter and striking things through on the pages.

“Again, not a divorce lawyer.”

“Well, you must know someone.”

Kessler narrows his eyes at her, but then snatches the papers back. He glances over the edits, pauses like he's considering something, then sighs.

“I'm only doing this because you're about to be able to afford me at a real rate. Not because you're my best behaved client, or the only one I can actually stand. And that includes your father,” he says with a smirk.

“You aren't going to tell him, are you?” Midge asks, hesitation marring her delight.

“Of course not. Attorney-client privilege.”

There's another round of back and forth, with Benjamin offering things Midge has no use for, let alone desire to have. But Midge would rather be done with her association with the doctor than drag out the process arguing against Benjamin's generosity, and Kessler helps her look at the settlement as an investment for her children's future instead of a comment on her ability to support herself. It takes a few expensive long-distance phone calls from the Steiner staff payphone, but an agreement is reached.

By early August, Mrs. Miriam 'Mrs. Maisel' Maisel-Ettenberg is Miss Miriam 'Mrs. Maisel' Weissman again. Midge celebrates her official return to singledom with a Grossinger's baked Alaska followed by an evening of monopolizing the handsomest dance instructor on the floor, much to the dismay of her date of the moment.

(If she dreams about a smug smirk, a peaked eyebrow, and a black suit that night it's not for lack of effort to remember every detail of the instructor's handsome face and strong hands while she washed for bed...)

Well-lit, delicious chaos...

When her family transitions back to the city, though, it's impossible to hold the flood of reality at bay. The city is crowded and dirty and loud, and however immaculately costumed and poised Midge may be, it's still a struggle to maintain the choreography of her life. It's an entirely different sort of chaos. She's still essentially supporting a family of five, four of whom can't understand or don't approve of her chosen career. Much as she hates to admit it, and a bit paradoxically, the alimony goes a long way toward keeping her parents from remarking on Midge continuing to work. It also gives her more breathing room to hone her comedy, taking on so many radio jobs no longer necessary.

She sends Kessler a fruit basket, a babka, and a thank you card along with the full amount on his invoice.

…

But just because it's useful not to _have_ to work so hard doesn't mean Midge isn't struggling in other ways. She _wants_ to work, to keep improving. She also wants to watch her kids grow up. She also wants to not live with her parents anymore. Even though they're technically living with her, it still feels like she's somehow trespassing on her parents' world when she comes back to the apartment each night.

It also became immediately clear upon returning to the city that the apartment at Riverside and 113th is not big enough to accommodate her parents, both her children, and Midge all at once without continuous uproar of one sort or another, regardless of whose house it actually is. And while her father is writing for the _Voice_ on a regular basis, critic money is not the same as tenured professor money, and it doesn't seem like either of her parents are particularly motivated to move out now that their daughter has come home.

Midge returns to stealing an hour or two in the relative comfort and quiet of Declan Howell's studio whenever she can. Just for the room to breathe, even if the air there is heady with turpentine. Howell may be watchful, but he also allows her the space to be still and alone. He doesn't mind sharing his silence with her.

When Midge can't make the time to disappear who-knows-where in the Village, she finds her escape in other comics. She arrives early to local gigs knowing she'll have to sit through Eugene and the boys - or some other assholes similar - and not caring, because she can critique things and borrow things and learn things from even the lousiest acts. Even when they don't make her laugh, Midge is where she wants to be when she's at a comedy show.

And when there isn't even a fellow comic's show, or an open mic, or a party-gig; when her children are consumed with coloring books and _Captain Kangaroo,_ and her parents are bickering between themselves and not with her; when Susie is busy being a manager of someone else's time, when Joel is busy with the club, and Imogene is busy being a mother of four; then Midge shuts the door on the room that was once her closet and is now her bedroom and pulls out her record collection. She shuts out the part of her mind that's still wondering 'what happened?' and listens to her friend Lenny Bruce pretend to argue with the phone company...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. My apologies for the lack of Lenny, but Midge really did have a lot to do. I wanted to give you all a nice long chapter as thanks for your patience this last week, then Lenny kinda pulled a disappearing act. Don't worry, he'll return shortly. :)  
> (Also, I threw in a few little references here and there: Easter eggs, if you will! ;) I will be tickled if you find them!)
> 
> In other news!: New digs! Wifi! A return of some semblance of normalcy in the middle of this truly bizarre time in the world! I am going to do my best to maintain a regular schedule for both your and my benefit. That said, my ancient laptop is struggling a little with the new wifi network, so there may be technical difficulties. I intend to be proactive about this, but as we all know, shit happens.  
> Thank you all very much for your patience, support, and feedback. It means a lot to me, even if we are all strangers on the internet. 
> 
> And as always, thank you for reading! <3


	9. Where Is Lenny Bruce When You Need Him?

Chicago is a big city, but it's a different animal to New York. The first time Midge played Chicago was on the Shy Baldwin tour, before that situation went the wrong version of 'tits up'. The second time had been on a tour of Susie's arranging, when her separation from Benjamin had been new; and while better than their first road-tour, it had been far less glamorous than traveling on the Baldwin Bandwagon's dime. This third venture to the Windy City, though... It feels like hers.

Midge isn't there to prop up someone else, or because Susie bullied a handful of bookers to give her their unfilled and undesirable time slots. Mrs. Maisel plays Chicago because bookers and club promoters want her there. She may not be headlining, but her stage name still appears on the marquees and the posted bills. She's developing a reputation. She has a draw, a certain cachet.

Chicago also has the Magnificent Mile.

Midge performs her first show, falls straight into bed as soon as she reaches her hotel, then wakes early enough to be at her favorite department store by opening. She shops all day, dresses for her next gig, performs, sleeps. Lather, rinse, repeat. Between the great sets, the great clothes, and the much needed distance from her parents, Midge finds heaven in Chicagoland.

With all this alone time, though, with all this breathing room – without even Susie to keep her distracted or on task as necessary – Miriam runs right into the thoughts she managed to avoid all summer.

Her second night at the Gate of Horn one of the waitresses shows Midge the narrow passage from the combination dressing room-office through to the bar, bypassing the stage and main room. As she weaves around cases of beer and Coca-Cola, she stumbles headfirst into Lenny Bruce. It's not really him; it's an old bill for an appearance at the same club where Midge now stands, squinting in the poor light and rubbing a stubbed toe. But here he is.

Lenny.

She can hear his voice in her mind so clearly; she's practically memorized his third album. Now, though, she recalls the tired tinge it'd had when he'd told her about the arrest warrant in Chicago. He was still 'on' that night, spinning his sob story into more jokes, but she had heard the exhaustion there, too. It was the first time Midge had felt like she had something to offer him beyond bail money and cab fare. Beyond professional respect.

Real friendship.

The frenetic pace of her life kept her from dwelling on any thoughts of Lenny, beyond his diabolical brand of comedy, for months. The chaos allowed her to ignore what has been simmering underneath everything this whole time. But here he is, staring at her with that slightly pained, expectant look, from the crinkled surface of a poster in a sea of folk music bills. _Is this the club he'd been run out of?_

It's an uncomfortable realization to make standing in the catacombs of a basement club, but Midge has to face it. She has to acknowledge that the way she feels about Lenny Bruce goes beyond professional respect, beyond friendship. She has to accept that the thoughts and questions and feelings she's been avoiding with a life full up with obligations and activities are not just going away. The burning - almost echoing - feeling of longing inside her is evidence of that.

It's time to make up her mind.

When she gets back to the hotel, Midge calls Susie. The manager can tell her comic is talking around something, the way she keeps babbling, but she's learned better than to push when Midge gets like this, especially this late at night. She makes grunting sounds of acknowledgment and understanding now and then, absently jotting words on her notepad, while trying not to worry, and wishing for sleep.

When she remembers the call while warming breakfast the next morning, Susie manages to decipher the words “Where is Lenny Bruce when you need him?” scrawled beside her telephone.

~//~

Lenny Bruce gets by.

Well, he's more than getting by, but he isn't telling the lawyers that. Or his ex-wife.

The summer has been relatively good to him, though, and, aside from a slight detour into bad territory that one night, after Midge... he hasn't been too hard on himself, either. There's still an itch under his skin, and he still drifts asleep with a forgotten cigarette or a clammy tumbler in his hand more often than is probably healthy. But he manages not to run down shady figures in the sorts of places he used to frequent with Honey, or Annie, or...

He still follows the swaying lines of a pretty woman and comes up wishing for blue eyes and fair skin, and a smart, red-stained mouth.

But there are plenty of suitable distractions from those thoughts, better ways of filling his off hours. And he isn't in prison, and he's not dead yet, which is the main thing.

Lenny doesn't always beat those thoughts back, though. The blue-eyed, red-lipped, too-quick-for-her-own-good thoughts. It's rare, but people do bring her up to him in conversation from time to time, and he's happy to claim Mrs. Maisel is going to be big – though he's also careful with his enthusiasm. Just because he occasionally entertains the thought doesn't mean he wants anyone else to.

That's how he ended up here. Some vaguely familiar looking comic caught him after his last set, looking for an autograph and some free advice, and asking about that Gaslight gig.

Now he's sitting up so late it's nearly early again, really letting those possibilities roll around in his head, pulling the memories from the liquor-damp recesses of his mind. And it's undeniable. His attraction to Miriam Maisel goes beyond her talent for whipping up a bit on the spot, her mind for improvisation and witticism, her incredible stage confidence.

And, yes. She is beautiful. He'd have to be blind _and_ dumb to convincingly deny her physical allure. But that isn't it, either.

It's all of it.

It's _her._

How alive she is...

She brought that vibrancy into his world, watched him and matched him, danced with him and touched him, and _he_ had run. It's been a long time since anyone's been capable of breaking through his numb agitation, shaking him up like that. Calming him down like that.

Lenny eyeballs the melting ice in his mostly empty glass, rubbing a thumb through the condensation, and suddenly recalls the feel of sticky sugar on Midge's fingers.

 _Florida, humidity in the air, a visual gag with pastry. Shiny number three, a pink flower_ _in_ _dark curls, a returned jacket._ He'd messed it up then, though he couldn't be sure how. Just knew how sick he'd felt after she'd walked away.

 _Her fingers smoothing his tie, the shared nervous energy of a television studio, an unfamiliar superstitious expression._ She hadn't always looked at him that way. Sometimes she was a mother, a pal, but sometimes... she was something else entirely.

_A riot of color, a creeping blush, an unchallenged allusion to another man. An offer to dance, a police interruption, a look held a moment too long or a moment not long enough._

He drags on his cigarette, seeing the delicate, off-handed way she holds hers in his mind's eye.

 _A great set, a comeback set, a knock-out set. A black dress and pearls flying toward him, black gloves catching him around the neck._ Even then, she had wanted to share it with him. All that joy, all that life...

His mind races, and his pulse along with it. He can't put his finger on any one moment, can't pin down an explanation. Can't shake the longing that's rising in him, can't give the thing for which he longs a name. It's... all of it. Her.

God help him, but he has to try again. He's got to find out, one way or another, once and for all.

Assuming he can still muster this half-drunk, sleep-deprived determination again when he's rested and sober.

~//~

It turns out, Lenny Bruce isn't that difficult to find when you need him. He's set up with some good New York clubs through the fall, and Susie finds him at one a few days after the weird call from Midge.

“Look, I know you don't owe me anything,” Susie begins. “I probably owe you. But let's face it, I don't have anything to offer.”

“Okay,” he draws out the vowels, impatience drawing his eyebrows together in a deep scowl. “I'm sensing an impending conjunction.”

“But,” Susie continues, “something's up with Midge. And we have a busy fall ahead of us, and winter after that-”

“No need to brag to me.”

“-and I need her to be on her game.”

“What am I supposed to be doing about this?” It doesn't seem possible, but the furrow in his brows deepens further, his eyes narrow slits.

“I got this weird phone call the other night, and she kept bringing you up. I never should've called you 'the best', because she's constantly comparing herself – which she will never admit to you, so don't tell her I said that – and I think she might be cracking. All that fresh air and running around this summer, and now she's in Chicago by herself, probably repainting the clubs pink or some shit. I dunno. She says it's going good, but she kept bringing you up...”

Susie suddenly stops, a wide-eyed and pained look on her face. Lenny's seen her flustered before, but he has never known her to completely freeze up like this.

“I think the crack-up's contagious,” he says, his features finally relaxing back toward amusement, and that knocks her loose again.

“Look, could you just come by a gig when she gets back? Tell her something encouraging?”

“I can do that,” Lenny says.

“It would mean a lot to her, and it would put my mind at ease. I'd ask Joel, but they've got a dicey record with these things, and I don't have time to sort out another divorce. We got a lot coming up the next few months, and I might havta send her to California on her own as it is. So it's really gotta be-”

“I said I'd do it!” Lenny says, exasperated and reeling slightly at Susie's anxious onslaught of information.

“Oh. Okay... Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note: The real Lenny Bruce performed the "Bust Show" and was arrested (along with a young George Carlin) at the Gate of Horn in Chicago in December of 1962. On the show, Lenny tells Midge there's a warrant out for his arrest in Chicago at the end of season two, so around the end of 1959. I have therefore done a bit of knitting fact and fiction together in a timey-wimey way by sending Midge to the Gate of Horn in September-ish of 1962. My description of the club is loosely based on Shel Silverstein's recollections of spending time there with folk musician Bob Gibson sometime in the early 1960s.
> 
> Other notes: I think I have finally gotten a handle on these hooligans and where they're headed (!?), and am estimating this will come out to twelve chapters. I make no promises, as this has been a completely baffling writing experience, but there are at least three more chapters coming. 
> 
> As always, thank you very much for reading! :)


	10. Timing

Susie seizes Lenny's arm almost immediately, throwing him off balance as she tugs him forward.

“You're late,” she says.

“Hey, attendance has to count for something. You never said I'd be graded for punctuality.”

“She goes on soon, and she swears she's fine, but I dunno. She seems nervous to me.”

“That's probably because you're stressing out the whole place.” Lenny manages to free himself from the diminutive woman's grip, but it's true; Susie's agitation is making his already uncomfortable determination to be here seem about a thousand times more like a bad decision.

“Get hold of yourself,” he says, partly for her benefit and partly for his own. _Why is he sober right now?_

Susie spots Midge meandering from the bar towards the side-stage, and tugs Lenny by the elbow again, angling him in the same direction.

“Say something nice,” Susie hisses, then shoves him forward. Lenny catches himself before he pitches off balance again, then saunters as cool as he can manage into Midge's line of vision in the alcove where she waits to take the stage.

“What are you doing here?” Midge asks, a little bug-eyed, but with a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

“Thought I'd catch the show while I have the chance. I hear you've got quite the schedule lined up.”

Midge frowns, then shakes her head. “Susie?” she asks. Lenny nods.

“There's something up with her,” Midge muses, searching over his shoulder for sight of her manager.

“No kidding,” he replies, masking his anxiety by tapping out a cigarette. He offers his pack to Midge, then sits down at the little table hidden behind the side-stage curtain when she waves it off. She drops into the chair beside him and watches him light up.

Midge didn't expect to see Lenny so soon after her basement epiphany in Chicago, but here he is. In the flesh this time, with that half-expectant, half-detached, all resigned to take what he gets look on his face. No time like the present, though, right?

She tries to brush aside the surprise, the nervous energy – the burning, consuming feeling she's been keeping suppressed even now she's determined to do something about it has begun to roar again – and decides to go after the thing she wants. Even if she's only got a few minutes before going on.

“Lenny,” she pauses, waiting for Lenny's attention. Her tone reminds him suddenly of getting in trouble as a boy. _Why is he here? Oh, right; because she is. And he's a fucking masochist._ Her mouth is a tight line, though her eyes seem warm. Searching.

“Midge,” he replies in kind, carefully neutral.

“I've actually been meaning to ask you something."

“Shoot,” he says, observing her with an attempt at vague curiosity. If there's a prickling at the back of his neck, he doesn't let on.

She hesitates only an instant, drawing in a deep breath, before the torrent of words comes pouring out of her.

“Look, I’ve bailed you out, you’ve bailed me out. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours... Lenny, I’ve been your mother, your sister, and your wife. I have to assume you do actually like me, otherwise why would you spend any time with me when you’ve got all that waiting for you -” she gestures vaguely toward the front of the house and the people who are actually there to see her - “And, we've had a good time. But we’ve also had this line drawn between us that I can't tell if it's actually there, or if I just made it up so I wouldn't have to wonder. And we've never actually had a conversation about it...” She manages to take another breath. “I’ve told people – over and over – that we’re friends. Just friends. But are we really? Am I your friend, Lenny? Or am I... something else?”

Lenny watches her and, aside from the finger that comes across his lips as he leans with his elbow on the table, shows no change of expression.

It doesn't come out quite how she would have liked, it doesn't sound elegant or composed at all, but it's out.

And he is listening. He listens, and watches her march straight up to the elephant in the room and demand it explain itself. She's demanding _he_ explain himself. Even in her flustered and babbling way of going about it, she's got chutzpah. _Goddam, she is intimidating._

“How do you...” He starts but trails off, sucking at his cigarette, appraising her with a squinting look, willing his hands not to shake.

“How do I what?” she asks, brows arched in question and skepticism. That's not a response she anticipated at all.

He shakes his head, one swivel from side to side, maintaining his gaze all the while. He doesn't know how to handle this and come out with his dignity. If he had any dignity.

“You do things...”

“I do things.” She repeats him again, not letting him get away with vague half-formed sentences. Waiting for a real answer.

Lenny doesn't know how to even begin to address the way she's simultaneously tearing him up with her demand to know what this is – she's skipped straight over any careful preamble he may or may not have had prepared for such a conversation – and turning him on with her insistent look and her pursed red lips.

“You could be ruinous to a man's ego, you know that?” It's not really a question.

To Midge he looks almost sleepy in the way he's squinting at her, absently curious. She wonders if he even heard what he just said. But that eyebrow bounced, and there's a slight lift to one corner of his mouth, and she decides to take it as a compliment.

“You _are_ ruinous to a comic's ego,” she retorts, giving her own backward compliment with an exasperated sigh.

He shrugs and tilts his head to accept it. And he’s still looking at her, too attentive now. Too curious.

She looks right back, holding his gaze in a way that lets him know he won’t be let off the hook. Even now, with equal measures of uncertainty and determination etched in her expression, she's radiating life, fire.

He hedges, stubbing out his cigarette and leaning forward a little further over the table. “Do you really need me to say it?”

“Yes, I really need you to say it. I need an answer... I have this whole other part of my life that is full up with trying not to think about it – trying not to think about _you_ , and that goddamn smirk, and your black ties, and the showing up places... – and it’s just about killing me!”

“Yes.”

“'Yes' what?”

“Yes, Midge, you are my friend. I am _your_ friend.” Lenny huffs out a gust of breath like a sigh, finally showing her how rattled he is. He sounds almost angry. “That’s all I’ve ever been, and that’s just about killed _me_. Twice.”

Midge's mouth purses into an even harder line, and her brow creases into a deep furrow. She's shaking her head, back and forth, not wanting to understand. _W_ _hat is he talking about? W_ _hy does he sound angry? Why is he looking at her like that?_

But she knows.

She knows, she knows, _she knows_.

_Florida._ It was gentle and unspoken, and years distant, now, but she had turned him down. _That was once._ The second time, though, when she'd pressed right up to him, when she'd looked straight into his stormy eyes and lifted her chin, _that had been all him._

“That's not fair, Lenny,” she whispers, choking the anger out of her own voice. Schooling her expression before meeting his eyes again.

“Life's not fair,” he deadpans, and the edge of anger is still there, but it lacks conviction. There's that pleading behind his eyes again...

“Lenny, I would have-”

Whatever she 'would have', whatever argument she might have made dies in Midge's mouth, because Lenny has pressed his mouth against it. The motion is so fast it almost hurts, and it only lasts a second.

He looks as surprised as she feels, shifting away slightly while still leaning over the table. He looks like he's waiting for the telling-off that's coming, for the slap across the face. But they don't come.

Her mind is a complete blank, unable to process anything but a strange recognition of the time.

“I... have to go on soon,” Midge hears herself say. Her shocked, searching gaze leaves Lenny as she stands from her chair on unsteady legs. He rises, matching her motion.

“Midge.” Her name sounds like a question and a request.

She meets his eye. “Yes?”

His lips catch hers, and it's like tasting a breeze he's so gentle this time. His eyes drop closed and he presses in. It's a kiss and it's a sigh - her eyes flutter shut as her lips part - a release of breath neither realized they were holding. His tongue just grazes her lip – tentative, promising – before he pulls back.

Midge opens her eyes, and there's an honest-to-god smile on his face.

“We'll talk later,” Lenny says, nudging her gently toward the stage. “Knock 'em dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh...  
> (These glorious idiots are trying to kill me, I swear)
> 
> So, I lied. Inadvertently, but still. In order not to dump a ridiculously long chapter on you next week, I'm now estimating a total of thirteen chapters. Assuming I can figure out how to split up what's going to happen and still have it make sense for those of you not currently living inside my brain (you lucky bastards). 
> 
> That said, I have written a lot more of these two than has managed to get worked back in after my imagination went haywire, and I am wondering if y'all would be interested to read that, too? The immediate story will wrap up in the next few chapters, but there's no way to make everything I have fit. So, I could do that thing I've seen others do, where the story is marked complete but surprise chapters come up later. Or, I could do a separate "work" that corresponds to this one, a little like the first two chapters here corresponded to Broken Colour, and mark this as a series. Or, you can tell me to buzz right off, that is also a valid response! Please let me know if you have thoughts, preferences, desires, etc... 
> 
> Thank you for reading (:


	11. Want

They didn't talk later.

He found her immediately after the set – as blue and as motor-mouthed as ever, but still classy, and hilarious – and insisted “You're incredible” without any prompting, eyes on her mouth as he spoke. She nodded and pulled him by the tie into the darkest corner behind the stage.

He tasted like cigarettes and desperation. She didn't care. He sucked her bottom lip and worried it gently with his teeth, sending a jolt of recognition straight to her -

“Holy shit, that was fantastic!”

_Susie._

They broke apart, she tugging his tie back into alignment, he smoothing her hair where his hands had gone into it. She pulled a compact and lipstick from some hidden pocket of her dress and quickly put her face back in order as Lenny disappeared along the wall behind the back curtain.

“I told you I was fine,” Midge insisted when Susie rounded the corner into the little alcove.

“And I will never doubt you again,” her manager claimed. “Can you do that again in an hour?”

Susie didn't leave Midge alone the entire interval between sets. Lenny reappeared to make encouraging compliments for Susie's benefit, but no more than meaningful eye-contact passed between the two comics by way of talking later...

~//~

It's agonizing in an entirely different way, to wait. And they wait a while.

~//~

She's wearing that red dress. Or maybe it's not the same dress, because he's never seen her in the same thing twice before. A dozen variations on a black cocktail dress, several shades of pink, rare blues or purples... and one knock-out red dress. It's been years, but it feels like days, moments, since he laid eyes on her in that red dress with the white petticoat beneath it as she descended the stairs of a police station in New York. The sight of her in that shade again hits him right in the chest (and somewhere near his groin, if he were being that honest with himself right now), and the anxiety and the excitement that's been buzzing under his skin since he saw her name on the marquee pitches up.

She's nearly done with her set. He can hear the threads of her jokes weaving back into the conclusion of her story even though he's missed the overall feel of her material for the evening. She's continually refined the architecture of her sets, and she's always brilliant, but it's particularly humbling to listen to her speak and watch her command the crowd in this moment.

He stands near the back of the room, but it doesn't matter that he hasn't worked his way any closer because her eyes find him anyway. She scans the room as she shouts her cheery thanks and good night, smiling around at the crowd at large, and there's an instant of hesitation when she catches his figure. She continues waving as she rushes backstage.

He loiters in the tittering crowd of people still finishing their drinks, or waiting to see if the next act is anywhere near as good as the woman who's just left the stage, and wonders if she'd actually seen him, if she'll suddenly appear beside him. It's a waitress who weaves through the tables and pushes through the standing masses toward him, though.

“Mr. Bruce? Mrs. Maisel left this for you,” she says, handing him a folded note, looking leery and sounding more than a little accusatory. _Shit_.

“Thanks.” He nods his appreciation and the waitress departs. The paper has the name of a hotel and an address printed at the top, and the name “Miriam Weissman” scrawled in neat, feminine script. He tries not to read into it – there's no room number, after all – but his anxiety and anticipation take off in a new direction anyway.

The hotel is just down the street, and Lenny finds Midge sitting at the lobby bar without having to ask for her at the desk.

“What did you tell that waitress? When she handed me your note I about turned to stone and gouged my eyeballs out.”

Midge rolls her eyes at him, but gestures to the stool beside her. “Alright, Oedipus. You're mixing your references.”

“Good thing I read it first.” He grins a little, and when she smiles back the tightness in his chest eases a fraction.

“Good thing,” she agrees.

They eye each other, that almost familiar tension crackling between them. Midge finishes her drink and swivels toward him.

“I think we're due for a conversation,” she says. _There it is_.

“Probably,” Lenny agrees, watching her for cues. There's a hint of that warm color creeping over the neckline of her dress, but she holds her composure, still smiling at him, and it takes effort not to look away from her intensity. “You should know, I am... more than a little intimidated by you right now.”

“Oh, so the usual, then?” she teases him, narrowing her eyes. Lenny can only swallow and nod, trying to hide a smirk with a hand, drawing more attention to his mouth.

“Let's take a walk. I have a feeling I'm gonna need the air.”

~//~

California is warmer than New York, but it's still December, and a chill rolls off the nearby water. She has her own coat, but he remembers before, when she'd worn his trenchcoat over her shoulders. Over that damned red dress.

She turns her collar up against the cold and loops her arm through his as if it's natural, as if they've been walking along like this for years. He lets her lead, and it's a relief not to think about where they're going, but the anticipation also weighs on Lenny's mind.

They round a corner and there's the ocean. The moon, just past full, hasn't disappeared in the oncoming fog yet, and the waves wink silver in the distance. The rhythmic sound of crashing water begins to mask their footsteps. It also calms their heart rates.

There's supposed to be a conversation taking place, but neither of them speak as they amble away from the hotel, toward the water.

Midge shivers and tugs the collar of her coat closed with her free hand, hiding the dress and her bare, slender neck. Lenny gently pulls his arm free of hers and wraps it around her, resting his hand above her hip, pulling her into his warmth. They walk a few more steps before Midge leans into his side and slips her free arm around him, grasping the fabric of his jacket and holding tight.

He's reassured by the weight of her at his back, by the heat radiating between their two sides, but the prolonged silence is becoming disconcerting. There's still too much uncertainty between them. Too many unknowns.

“We aren't talking, Midge,” Lenny points out.

“I know...”

“If you're about to let me down easy, or even tell me off, I think we'd better stop here,” he says. But he's still letting her lead, and she's not stopping.

“I'm not,” she says, and the little sound that follows her words, not quite a sigh, manages to spike his pulse again.

She leads them to the shore, and she slips from his side and catches his hand, keeping herself balanced on the strength of his outstretched arm as she picks gingerly over the stony beach in her healed shoes. Grasping his fingers tight. She brings them up alongside an empty lifeguard tower.

“I like you,” she suddenly says. She's watching the horizon, the waves, when she says it.

“I like you, too,” he responds, smiling with surprise as he searches her expression. She glances back to him. She's smiling, and nods too, but there's something glistening in her eyes.

“Midge...?”

“There are a lot of things you don't know about me. A lot of things don’t make suitable material,” she says, taking time with her words rather than letting them tumble out of her. “I'm sure there's plenty I don't know about you, too. There's never going to be time to learn all of it. And I'm okay with that.”

He has no idea where she's going with this, but she's watching his mouth with those damp eyes now, and he waits for her.

“I know that you and I will never have that kind of familiarity, but I still feel like you know me. And I want to know you...”

Something curious passes over her expression, and the glistening in her eyes subsides, but-

“You're the one who warned me I'd end up all alone,” she continues. He tilts toward her, worry on his face, but she stops him with a hand to his chest before he can speak. “And that's alright, too... You showed me what's possible. You know what my life looks like, because you live like this, too. Of all the people who've come around to the career I chose, of everyone who's supported me, you're one of the very few people who actually _gets it_. Who actually understands.”

Her eyes drop, her fingers running over his tie. And he nods, and catches her hand again.

“Do you regret it?” he asks. His voice comes out uncharacteristically low, and she knows he isn't asking about comedy.

The pause that follows is brief, but absolutely nerve-racking. She meets his eyes again.

“No. Do you?”

“No...”

“'No, but'?” She searches his expression, and there's agitation in his look.

“But it's different for me... Fuck, I know that it is, Midge.” He sighs. “I'm a man! I could go through a plate-glass window and still want you!”

“Don't you dare,” she scolds, recognizing his words. “Don't use a bit with me. That's the reason we're in this mess, letting the jokes hide the reality. Hiding what we want.”

“You're right, I'm sorry,” he concedes. “But it's also true, Midge. I can want you all the time and it's no skin off my back. But you're a woman, and it's absolutely not fair, but it means something else, you wanting me. Maybe now you've had a taste it isn't worth the risk...”

“Is that what it was?” She sounds more skeptical than upset. “Does all this -” she suddenly shrugs out of her coat in one smooth motion, opening her arms, letting the moonlight catch her pale skin - “just get you hot?” She chooses to ignore his other implication.

“Not just that. Not just hot.” He reaches to retrieve her coat and hand it back to her, too afraid, now, to drape it around her himself.

“Alright, tell me.”

He swallows hard, but his expression reads sharp sincerity. “You terrify me.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“It's true. You are so talented, and so beautiful, and so alive. And, my god, I want you... But I am barely keeping my life under control. I’m a one man disaster area! But you... Not only are you gorgeous, but you've got the smartest fuckin’ mouth. Not only are you smart, but you're talented, and you're kind-”

“You're kind, Lenny,” she says, but it's his turn to wave her off.

“Not like you. Maybe I've done you a favor or two, but that's because I know what you’ve got. And it oughta be a crime keeping you from telling the truth, making people recognize it. People listen to you, you know that? And when they don't, you make them laugh until they do.”

He has that almost angry edge in his voice, but his words sound like the way she would describe him.

“I’m not as good as you,” she says.

“You’re not as infamous as me,” he corrects. “But you're gonna be big. Just getting bigger and bigger... You're gonna outlive me, Mrs. Maisel. You already are. I'm not a comedian anymore. I'm... Lenny Bruce.”

His frown is deep, but his eyes...

“My friend, Lenny Bruce,” Midge whispers, watching him with curiosity and affection.

She's pulled the coat back around her, and though she's shivering she drops her fists to her sides, letting it hang open. The red of her dress stands out in the growing dark, marking her vibrancy – the fire inside her – even as the fog rolls in.

She steps toward him.

“Are you really afraid I'll outshine you?” she asks, that skeptical note back in her voice, trying not to sound accusatory.

“No, I want you to be big. I want you to get everything you want.” He's watching her light in the gloom. “I just-...”

“What?”

She watches his thumb running back and forth across his fingertips. Watches the quirk of his brow, the twitch of his lips as he fights whatever thoughts are running through his head. He looks pained and pleading.

“What do you want, Midge?” he asks, leaning toward her.

They crossed the line weeks ago now, so why does she feel like she's still teetering right over it?

“I wanna know you, as short or as long as I can. I wanna... dance with you. And trade jokes... I wanna go to shady clubs, and stand outside your play-dates... I wanna laugh with you, and-...”

She stops short, teetering. It would be so easy to take the half-step forward. To rise up onto her toes, and...

“Are you sure you want _me_?” His eyes hold hers. 

“Of course I do.”

“No. There is no 'of course' with us.”

“I know I don't want to be alone when I could be alone with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deep breath... 
> 
> I did lift some phrases from real Lenny Bruce material, but repurposed them for my own ends. 
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


	12. Alone Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains sexual content. Reader discretion advised.

He hovers near the elevator as if he's waiting for someone else while she checks for messages at the desk.

Her hand finds his as they ride up together in silence.

A key.

He watches her, waiting for the sign to turn back that doesn't come. A meeting of eyes, and he resists the temptation to put his own foot in it with words like 'are you sure?'

The searing look she gives him withers any remaining doubt.

He presses against her as soon as the door clicks shut, pinning her. Mouth at her neck, fingers tugging gently at her hair. Inhaling the scents of perfume and powder.

His hands, his lips, alternately soft and rough, without coherent rhythm, dragging over her. He pushes her coat off her shoulders and shrugs out of his own jacket as fast as he can. Running his palms over her still-chilled arms.

She holds her own, mouth on fire, hand wrapped in that tie, keeping him close. She can't decide if she wants him to keep wearing it, or if she'll unknot it for him and fling it aside.

His leg between her thighs, pressing. His hands, groping her breasts over her dress. _Red dress..._

His tongue, doing something decidedly obscene to her ear. Tasting her in a place no one has bothered before.

Her nipples respond immediately. An unexpected whimper.

One hand still pulling him by the tie, the other in the fine curls at the nape of his neck, she redirects his attention. This new taste is almost bitter.

It isn't long before he's back at her throat. At the top of one breast, then the other. He distracts her, a nip of teeth, a squeeze. Carefully loosening her grip on the black strip of cloth that could be his noose.

He sinks slowly, searching out the hooks that keep her dress closed across her cleavage.

Impatient, going to his knees. Hands running along her legs, up under her skirts. Lips pressed to her knee. Disappearing into the cloud of her petticoat. She reaches for his shoulder, searching for him and not wanting him to stop the things he's doing at the same time.

He finds her grasping hand with one of his, grips it tight. Reassuring her enough to lean back against the door and let him nudge aside her protective silk. Let him taste her there, too.

It's awkward and arousing, both, and so rushed. His back and legs emerging beneath the circle of her dress, almost comical. She smiles at the sight until a determined lap sends her expression into pinched pleasure. She trembles over him, crushing his hand in hers, trying not to fall.

She's calling his name.

“Lenny... Lenny. Lenny, Lenny. LennyLennyLenny,” she calls him with increasing insistence, pulling his hand, until his face appears around the billow of red fabric. Flushed pink with her heat and his own.

“Let me make you come,” he begs. His eyes so honest, his brow knit with confused frustration.

She nods, vehement bobs of the head with a lip between her teeth.

“But I want _you_ ,” she says, pulling him as best she can with the grip around his one hand, and he rises.

The tie has to go. The buttons of his shirt occupy her fingers next, slipping undone with unbelievable speed and dexterity. He reciprocates with the hooks of her dress, the belt, pulling the red down around her along with the white petticoat. Her hands go to his belt and he has to stop her or he might jump the gun.

He turns away to untie his shoes, to undo his own trousers, squinting and gritting his teeth to stay calm. He finally notices the impressive collection of luggage crowding one side of the room.

“Did you pack an entire department store?” he asks, trying to make light before they're naked in front of each other. The dresser-top on the opposite wall is piled with teddy bears. “And rob a nursery?”

He squints his humorous disbelief as he turns, but the look completely falls when he catches sight of her.

It's not as though he was unaware of her body. It's not that he's forgotten he was just running his hands all over her, his tongue in a very intimate place, moments ago. (It's not like there isn't an image of her in that nightgown the night of her first arrest tucked somewhere in his memory...)

“No more jokes?” she asks, though her tone itself indicates a joke. Standing there with the same poise she shows fully clothed, and heat in her blue eyes.

“No jokes,” he agrees. She smiles then, and he manages a smile despite the awe still tinging his expression.

His hands shake when he reaches for her, but he's firm and steady when he closes his arms around her. Her lips move against his, still insistent but less frenzied.

It's a joint effort, making it to the bed, and he gets another struck look on his face when she tells him where to find protection. He recovers quickly, though, and shucks off his undershirt with enthusiasm before falling to her mouth again.

His fingertips search her, tracing blind. His lips trailing from her jaw to her collar bone, to the valley between her breasts. She strokes the planes of his chest, along his ribs, with encouraging pressure. Her hands sweep his back and press against his neck until he closes over her peak.

The same way his tongue at her ear made her nipples strain, the draw of his mouth, his laving tongue now at her nipple creates a cascade of electricity between her legs. His lips graze, wet and lazy, working his way to the second bud. Sucking with matched fervor.

Gasps and insistent hips spur him further down. He slides to her crease, unmasked now.

She wants him inside. He wants to taste her again. A silent standoff passes between them in locked looks. He brings a finger through her lips. She bucks against him, and he wins.

He relishes her pleasure. Works fingers, lips and tongue to draw her back to the edge.

His name begins to bubble from her again. Her hands in his hair, fisted in the sheets, over her own throat. Her knees coming up to push herself toward him.

(To push herself away?)

She sounds confused and desperate, his name falling apart in her mouth. Gasps and whimpers. She scrambles for release, and -

He stops. She can feel his breath, hot against her thighs, but his only contact is where he holds her hips. Then that goes, too.

“What are you...?” She finds him with her eyes.

“You're fighting it so hard. Just... let it happen.”

His words daze her. More than his touch.

She reaches out, grazing his cheek. He catches her arm. Presses his lips to her wrist.

“I promise, I'll get you there,” he says.

The unnamed thing inside her – the echo of his voice, the longing – erupts.

She nods. He rises instead of falling back to savoring. He kisses her mouth. Gently, briefly. Prepares himself.

Even once he's inside her, his fingers work between them. His own motion secondary to his desire – his need – to bring her there. His focus in his hand, at the epicenter of her pleasure.

It's overwhelming. They aren't unfamiliar sensations, yet it's so much to put all together. Entirely new.

She has never been made to feel so present in her ecstasy.

She watches him. His hands, his expression. The tensing and pulling of the muscles in his abdomen, groin, legs.

She can't grasp how. How he can keep building, how he keeps going, but it's undeniable that it works...

He leads her to the edge again. Her eyes roll back and her fingers close in fistfuls of linens.

“Miriam,” he calls her as she begins to close around him.

Blue eyes open. Glassy, but finding his. The real smile blooms under her attention.

His pace picks up, evens. His fingers fly against her, and she's going to shatter.

The fire, the longing inside her met.

An inferno.

A cacophony.

His pace increases and it's utterly incomprehensible.

All of it.

Acts she knows, things she's felt before... But never with him. Never like this.

She couldn't form his name, a coherent word, if she tried. She's breaking and he's putting her back together in the same stroke.

She cries something senseless. Holy and profane.

He follows her over.

~//~

She wants to say something.

She wants to kiss him.

She's asleep before he returns from the bathroom.

~//~

She wakes before dawn. Curled into the crook of his body.

She cleans herself and slips into her nightgown.

He's rolled in his sleep, but he stirs enough to pull her arm around him when she slides into bed behind him.

She kisses his shoulder. He squeezes her hand.

She presses along his spine. He leans back, just slightly.

Kisses his neck – lets go her hand – licks tentatively at the shell of his ear, pulls the lobe between her teeth.

He rolls to face her.

It's slower and quieter the second time. Simpler. No stand off. No working up to a stop just to build even higher.

A continuous crescendo.

They're on even footing, though she's clearly leading. His hand goes to her apex, making sure she gets all the way over, but he goes first this time.

~//~

She's so strong.

She's so confident, and talented, witty, and cutting. The word 'resilient' comes to mind.

She's also tender.

He knows, because he's seen it. She has shown up for him when he's needed it. She's shown up for him when he wasn't prepared for her. And she waited.

She didn't put her life on hold for him; nothing like that. And he wouldn't want her to. He would not be like her husbands – he refuses to be the selfish man. But she kept him tucked somewhere in the recesses of that incredible mind of hers, somewhere in her heart, and hadn't thrown him out for being afraid to face her acceptance. She never succumbed to his self-sabotage.

She's too good for her own good. But that isn't true. She's beautiful and talented and incredible. And she isn't this good to just anyone, or she'd still be with that doctor, or the one before him.

No, she's strong and discerning, and she chooses him.

“Did I kill you?” She asks, tone light, but with a pinch at the corner of her eyes betraying her concern.

“No,” he sounds far away as he says it, musing. His voice comes back to him as he refocuses on the here and now. “But if you had, I woulda died happy.”

She snorts in response, uncomfortable with the sentimental note in his statement, but blushing all the same.

“It wasn't that good,” she says, scoffing through her blush.

“Oh. Well then, let me try again...”

His arms snake around her suddenly, lifting her from the sheets as he pulls her toward him, pressing frantic pecking kisses all along her neck and into her hair.

She shrieks with surprise that dissolves immediately into laughter. And if that isn't the most honest sound in the world, Lenny doesn't know what is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and breathe out.
> 
> [It will surprise absolutely no-one who reads these notes to learn that this was not the plan. I got a crazy case of lightning brain and rewrote a major portion of this between 2:00 and 4:00 this morning. I don't know if it works. I feel so insecure right now it seems like I need some sort of qualifier here. "Pacing? Consistency of style? Never heard of 'em..." (Fun fact: the file name I use for this story on my computer came from this section, but has now been completely edited out!) Why am I like this?]
> 
> Let's find out if I can pull the rest of this off, shall we?
> 
> Thank you very much for reading <3


	13. The Line

They redraw the line.

And it's a funny thing, the line. Not funny ha-ha, but funny strange. Inconsistent.

Outside the bubble of the hotel room, when they are careful not to attract attention to their familiarity, the line becomes something of a source of pride. 'Look at us match wits and out-joke one another, and never once succumb to the baser instincts of human nature.' The line keeps them appropriately platonic, just distant enough.

It's easier to joke, to pick up the banter, when they're standing on opposite sides of the line.

When they're on the same side of it, though, it seems ridiculous that there should ever have been a line to begin with. What is a line to personalities like theirs but an enticement to cross? A line is another boundary to be pushed. And they push it, trample it, erase it, over and over again, in the early hours of the mornings.

The line is a shield. It's a flirtation. A souvenir of a time before...

They redraw the line.

Lenny Bruce has shows, and Mrs. Maisel has shows, and whoever finishes first turns up at the other's venue each night. Under the eyes of their fellow comedians they play it cool enough to keep others guessing, if not pull the wool over completely.

One night Lenny runs late, covering another comic's slot, and the line stays intact a while longer. A tanned West Coast comic asks Mrs. Maisel to a late dinner, and a collection of comedians and performers congregate around her at a nearby diner. Lenny joins them after his sets finish, but Midge is sufficiently charming and funny that everyone feels the draw to her side of any given line.

Everyone seems to catch her cues, but only Lenny knows where they lead.

When someone inevitably asks how they know each other, “Jail” comes out of both their mouths simultaneously, and the air erupts with stunned laughter.

That night the line begins to erode with Lenny's fingers at the nape of Midge's neck, unzipping her dress for her; though neither can work up the energy or the coordination for more than heated looks and flickering smiles as they undress. They go to bed in appropriate attire, she in yet another nightgown, he in the pajamas that migrated from his hotel with his clean shirts and ties. They fall asleep on the crumbling line, and wake up staring across at one another.

“Ready for the outside world?” Lenny asks with a glance at the clock.

“Not particularly...” She sighs. “One more day...”

His look is heavy, calculating, and Midge braces against what is coming.

“Do you regret it?” It's an echo of his question on the beach, voice just as low, as if she won't be able to reply if she can't hear him ask.

She holds his eyes as she answers, “No.”

“'No, but'?” he asks. She huffs at his intuition.

“Do you know how many people assume we've slept together? And have told me about it?”

“I'd guess a lot more than have asked me about you.”

“It's staggering. Or it was, before it got old.”

He leans toward her and presses his lips to her cheek, as if to comfort. But she turns away, sitting up against her pillows.

“I mean, the idea that it's funny to tell a girl she's slept with someone – why do people still think that's funny? No, not people. Why do men think that's funny?”

“I couldn't say.” His tone seems to indicate that it's not that he doesn't know, but that any reason he could give would anger her. “I have the utmost respect for a girl's private business. Especially where I'm involved.” He sighs. “Although, the male comic is a pretty despicable breed.”

He almost sounds as frustrated as she's feeling, and she turns back to study his face.

She unconsciously matches his frown as she catalogs his features.

“Did somebody say something last night?” he asks.

“No. I mean, you were there when Mort finally asked.”

He nods.

“I did say it would be different for you than for me... I'm not planning on telling people, though, if that's what you're worried about.”

“No, I know. It's not that.”

“Then what?” His brow lifts from the frown to a concerned sort of curiosity.

She isn't going to tell him that even her parents once assumed Lenny was the reason she hadn't married Benjamin the first time. She isn't going to say how much she doesn't want to go home (she won't admit how much these days and nights have meant to her). She doesn't want to face _that_ outside world, and she isn't ready to have the next conversation that needs to be had, either.

Instead, she asks, “Your real name isn't 'Bruce,' is it?”

There's a shift from curiosity to surprise, but he doesn't comment on the change of subject.

“It was Marsalle for a while, first,” he says and scrubs a hand over his face. He needs to shave.

“Marsalle...” Midge tries the name, but it doesn't sound real. Not really French, not really Italian, not really anything. And definitely not Jewish. “And before that?”

Lenny narrows his eyes, a little suspicion working into his look, but he answers with humor in his voice.

“Leonard Alfred Schneider. Do you need to see a birth certificate? I don't have it on me, but I could make a call...”

“Schneider...” She pins him with something inscrutable as she says it, but then she changes course on him again. She'll never be ready, so why not get it over with?

“Where are you going to go, Mr. Schneider, when I leave?”

“Work. I have to work tonight, too, ya know.” He seems to have missed her meaning.

“I mean after that. Where are you going to be when I go back?”

“Midge...” He gives her a hard look, but it softens as he takes her in. Her hesitant sincerity.

His hand slips into her hair, pushing the disheveled locks back.

This time she leans into his touch. He plays with the curls, watching them rebound, and runs his fingertips along her scalp in a deeply soothing way. It feels domestic in a way Midge's domestic life never felt. Not that Joel never ran his fingers through her hair, or Benjamin lay watching her before work. But there's a different weight to what Lenny does now. No undercurrent of urgency, even with the day dwindling away, their obligations approaching.

The outside world...

She lets him distract her, soothe her. She isn't ready...

“Miriam,” Lenny says her name in the way that immediately brings her back to him, removing his hand as he does. “I was joking when I offered to propose last spring, but I wasn't lying when I said it'd be your third failed marriage. This has been... better than I ever thought it could be, but it isn't sustainable.”

“I know that,” Midge says. And she does.

She has always known.

But she has also been avoiding thinking about life in New York by filling all her time with him, and now that time is almost up. “I'm not asking you to promise me anything – I'm not asking you to go steady, for chrissake! I'm just asking... when I'll see you again...”

He sighs, a long, head-shaking sigh. “I don't know,” he says. “But you will.”

“And what will we be then? Friends?”

“Depends, I suppose.”

“On?”

His eyes go dark, empty, like he's looking through her. The hand that was in her hair twitches against the bedspread, his thumb running over his fingertips.

“Honestly? Anything could happen. And I don't want to think about it,” he finally says. “But I want to say yes. I wanna think we'll be able to get back to this...” His focus comes back to her face, his fingers returning to sweep her hair aside once more.

“But look where loneliness got us.” She seems to finish his thought, because he nods.

Just like she has ways of complicating and filling up her life to distract from the things she doesn't want to feel, he has his own distractions and vices. How long would either of them be able to hold out? He's right, it isn't sustainable.

“I don't regret it, Miriam. I don't,” Lenny says. “I won't promise you anything; not because you aren't asking, but because I _can't_. And I won't hold you to anything I can't promise, either.” He meets her eyes. “Okay?”

She nods. At least they're being honest, even if her stomach is in knots.

“Do we have to say it?”

“No,” he kisses her cheek. “As long as we know.”

~//~

They redraw the line.

They shatter it, demolish it, erase it first. But they redraw it.

~//~

“Who the hell is Alfie Schneider?” Susie asks after Midge's first Gaslight show back in New York.

“It's a pseudonym, to protect the innocent. Well, the semi-innocent...” Midge replies.

“Fuck pseudonyms! You don't use pseudonyms unless it's to protect you! You're the one who needs protecting!” Susie practically shouts, her eyes bulging as Midge watches her gears turn. “You did meet Mort Sahl in California, didn't you?!” the manager suddenly spits, accusatory.

Midge rolls her eyes. “Yes, but nothing happened. We had dinner. He doesn't swear or even drink. Why the hell would I date Mort Sahl? - And I only ever call Benjamin 'The Doctor' on stage. That's like a pseudonym... And I never use Howell's name when I tell the art joke...”

“Uh-huh,” Susie concedes, though she doesn't sound happy about it.

“Look, it's not going to be a problem. Susie, I'm not gonna chase some boy! I am dedicated to the work,” Midge says, trying to maintain calm and present professionalism, for both their sakes. “Just trust me.”

~//~

Lenny doesn't sleep for a while. When he does manage to doze without chemical aid, it almost feels like a betrayal. But he has places to show up. Like nightclubs. And court. And he's kicked the habit of Miriam Maisel – Miriam Weissman – before, so he can do it again.

If keeping her off his mind, if nodding off in a timely way means embracing some of the darkness again, so be it. He'll see her, sometime, but for now... For now, there's a thousand plus miles between them.

~//~

Months pass before they find themselves in the same city again, and it's easy to find the line.

Their banter is the hallmark. When they duel wits it isn't hard to spot it. Their voices and readiness to speak betray the necessity to maintain the line.

When they are quiet, though, the looks get heavy. The quiet reminds them what they are hiding, protecting. Because jokes can't disguise that longing for very long.

They maintain the line, and their back and forth is break-neck, overwhelming to outside observers. It never gets quiet while anyone who might recognize them is around. And Susie is always around. And if not Susie, then Eugene, or some asshole similar, because everyone Mrs. Maisel knows in comedy wants to know Lenny Bruce, too.

They learn to avoid each other rather than play their parts for the sake of anyone else, and the line threatens to become a wall.

Until the night it disappears.

~//~

It's rare that they are ever misaligned. It's easier to avoid the other than risk that they be in the same place and on a different page. But they both turn up one night at the Vanguard, neither expecting the other. And maybe it's the venue, or the music, or the people, but Lenny finally gets a glimpse of her without the smudge of caution marring her beautiful face.

Midge catches his profile, ponderous as he listens to the music, and the hollow inside her swells.

They acknowledge one another from across the room between songs, tilted heads and distant smiles, still careful of boundaries and appearances. And it's so ridiculous, the space between them.

Midge slides into the seat beside him when Lenny returns from an alley-side intermission with the musicians, and his look is surprised but happy. He offers her a cigarette. She accepts. And after he lights his own smoke, her hand settles over his on the table.

Another time he wouldn't have acknowledged it at all, but now he levels one peaked eyebrow at her and waits. She doesn't move away. And when she doesn't move, neither does he.

When the boys invite Lenny to an after hours and extend the invitation to Midge as well, she goes. She listens to them all talk jazz and follows along as best she can, asking questions and making jokes as the opportunities arise.

Somebody's talking about the Birdland, and Midge admits she's never been. Lindsey says “Have Lenny take you,” like it's nothing.

“The Half Note, too,” someone else adds. There's a short squabble over the best jazz clubs to take a newcomer, but there's agreement all around that Lenny should take her.

“Alright,” Midge says, and turns to the man still holding her hand under the table. “Will you take me to the Half-Note?”

“Any time you like.”

It seems almost too simple, like there's something they're forgetting. But they haven't forgotten anything.

They aren't demonstrative. They aren't about to come right out and kiss each other in front of a room full of musicians and beatniks. But Lenny keeps holding her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles, as if it's natural. They're quiet with each other while they continue to engage with the group. No more combative energy.

There's space between them, but it isn't a barrier. It's more of a social agreement than a boundary. There's nothing to push.

When the party breaks up, Lenny hails her a cab. He doesn't get in with her, but he does wrap his arms around her and press a kiss to her cheek, then to her lips, before sending her off.

~//~

The line dissolves...

They don't tell anyone, or acknowledge anything when people ask what their relationship is (when someone really presses, they roll out the 'married and/or related' routine and leave the inquirer stumped or scandalized, or both). There are no grand declarations or overt public displays. There is still a certain distance.

But their looks linger. Their silences draw out in smiles, no need for quips and jokes to fill the space, to distract an audience. There is distance, but there is also careful closeness.

They take what time and space they can get, and let the urgency and haste go out of most interactions. When they laugh, there's almost always honesty in it, because it's not a smoke screen anymore.

(Lenny loves the rich sound of Miriam laughing, the building of it in her chest, the rising sound in her throat...)

The sparks between them aren't tension but the longing between them being met and drawn away, even if only for a while. The electricity of curiosity and recognition.

They never make promises. They never say the words. They stop trying to hold on.

There are other people, other vices... But the longing inside them, that speaks, one to the other... The familiarity... The perspective they share...  
(The love...)  
It doesn't go out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. 
> 
> Thank you very much for sticking with me and reading through to the end. I am terrible at endings.
> 
> Surprise! There's more! Not here, and not immediately. Right now, my original projects are in dire need of attention. But there will be more, if you haven't tired of my imagination yet. I will post some of the "cut for time" sections from this piece, as well as some later interactions between these two fools, in (a) separate work(s) in the near future. 
> 
> Again, thank you. I appreciate your readership so much <3 <3 <3  
> Stay safe, everyone!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It's Still Making Noise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296161) by [which_chartreuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/which_chartreuse/pseuds/which_chartreuse)




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